Hi Ross, to start with I guess its a purists choice when it comes to the Monaro. On one side of the coin there is the fact that it carries the name and legend of the one of the original Australian muscle cars, albeit powered by chev 350 in 1969. It was the first 2 door performance vehicle that GMH produced in many years. Performance wise no one cant doubt in certainly has the grunt.
As for its pedigree, well the the model is based on a 4 door variant called the commodore which is a basic family sedan. The Monaro even came in a six cylinder cylinder configuration as well. This has become available over the years in several performance versions leading to ultimatley the Monaro. The same drive train is available in sedan and utility and wagon, suprisingly one sees more same spec utes(SS) and (MALOO) than Monaros, and its not neccesarliy a pricing issue. The utes are upwards of $50 000 aussie as is the Monaro.
The monaro essentially gave the Australian public an oppurtunity to spend big on a performance vehicle without having to purchase a european car. We still have a stigma here about euro cars.( OOH they cry. parts mate are so expensive) Even though the Monaro will start to fall apart like its base model cousins in 20 years Aussies still love this stuff. Its also a status kind of thing for those who,s australia is still GMH vs Ford.
From Memory there was a differential(spline) issue with the cars and some of the earlier engines had a machining fault.
On a meet we went to last year at eastern creek there was a commodore skid pan day. There were hundreds of utes, wagons, sedans and monaros driven by merchandise clad holden worshipping die hards. Funnily enough production of the Monaro has now ceased!
Personally if I had $70 grand to spend on a car it definatley would not be a trumped up 2 door commodore. It would be a couple of BMs.
I still see Monaros on the street and would not swap my 14 year old 540i for event the flashest Monaro. They are available in the UK branded as Vauxhall as well but I dont know how they are going there.
To summarise. cant deny the grunt and the appeal of 4oo horsies screaming along,( doesnt matter what make or model 400 is 400hp) but for the money well its just a 2 door commodore really! Im sure to be scorched for this if there are any die hard holden boys amongst the crew here but I doubt there is.
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"The gas pedal wouldn't go to the floor if it weren't meant to be there"
Originally Posted by Ross
